Title: The Untroubled Mind
Author: Hall, Herbert J.
Language: English
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THE

UNTROUBLED MIND


BY

HERBERT J. HALL, M.D.



BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge



COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HERBERT J. HALL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published May 1915_



PREFACE


A very wise physician has said that "every illness has two parts--what
it is, and what the patient thinks about it." What the patient thinks
about it is often more important and more troublesome than the real
disease. What the patient thinks of life, what life means to him is also
of great importance and may be the bar that shuts out all real health
and happiness. The following pages are devoted to certain ideals of life
which I would like to give to my patients, the long-time patients who
have especially fallen to my lot.

They are not all here, the steps to health and happiness. The reader may
even be annoyed and baffled by my indirectness and unwillingness to be
specific. That I cannot help--it is a personal peculiarity; I cannot ask
any one to live by rule, because I do not believe that rules are
binding and final. There must be character behind the rule and then the
rule is unnecessary.

All that I have written has doubtless been presented before, in better
ways, by wiser men, but I believe that each writer may expect to find
his small public, his own particular public who can understand and
profit by his teachings, having partly or wholly failed with the others.
For that reason I am encouraged to write upon a subject usually shunned
by medical men, being assured of at least a small company of friendly
readers.

I am grateful to a number of friends and patients who have read the
manuscript of the following chapters. These reviewers have been frank
and kind and very helpful. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Richard C.
Cabot, who has given me much valuable assistance.



CONTENTS


     I. THE UNTROUBLED MIND              1

    II. RELIGIO MEDICI                  10

   III. THOUGHT AND WORK                20

    IV. IDLENESS                        30

     V. RULES OF THE GAME               38

    VI. THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT         50

   VII. SELF-CONTROL                    59

  VIII. THE LIGHTER TOUCH               65

    IX. REGRETS AND FOREBODINGS         73

     X. THE VIRTUES                     81

    XI. THE CURE BY FAITH               88



I

THE UNTROUBLED MIND


    Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
    Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
    Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
    And with some sweet oblivious antidote
    Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
    Which weighs upon the heart?
                MACBETH.

When a man tells me he never worries, I am inclined to think that he is
either deceiving himself or trying to deceive me. The great roots of
worry are conscience, fear, and regret. Undoubtedly we ought to be
conscientious and we ought to fear and regret evil. But if it is to be
better than an impediment and a harm, our worry must be largely
unconscious, and intuitive. The moment we become conscious of worry we
are undone. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we cannot leave conscience to
its own devices unless our lives are big enough and fine enough to
warrant such a course. The remedy for the mental unrest, which is in
itself an illness, lies not in an enlightened knowledge of the
harmfulness and ineffectiveness of worry, not even in the acquirement of
an unconscious conscience, but in the living of a life so full and good
that worry cannot find place in it. That idea of worry and conscience,
that definition of serenity, simplifies life immensely. To overcome
worry by substituting development and growth need never be dull work. To
know life in its farther reaches, life in its better applications, is
the final remedy--the great undertaking--_it is life_. We must warn
ourselves, not infrequently, that the larger life is to be pursued for
its own glorious self and not for the sake of peace. Peace may come, a
peace so sure that death itself cannot shake it, but we must not expect
all our affairs to run smoothly. As a matter of fact they may run badly
enough; we shall have our ups and downs, we shall sin and repent, and
sin again, but if in the end we live according to our best intuitions,
we shall be justified, and we need not worry about the outcome. To put
it another way, if we would have the untroubled mind, we must transfer
our conscientious efforts from the small details of life--from the worry
and fret of common things--into another and a higher atmosphere. We must
transfigure common life, dignify it and ennoble it; then, although the
old causes of worry may continue, we shall have gained a stature that
will make us unconscious masters of the little troubles and in a great
degree equal to the larger requirements. Life will be easier, not
because we make less effort, but because we are working from another and
a better level.

If such a change, and it would be a change for most of us, could come
about instantly, in a flash of revelation, that would be ideal, but it
would not be life. We must return again and again to the old uninspired
state wherein we struggle conscientiously with perverse details. I would
not minimize the importance and value of this struggle; only the sooner
it changes its level the better for every one concerned. Large serenity
must, finally, be earned through the toughening of moral fibre that
comes in dealing squarely with perplexing details. Some of this struggle
must always be going on, but serener life will come when we begin to
concern ourselves with larger factors.

How are we to live the larger life? Partly through uninspired struggle
and through the brave meeting of adversity, but partly, also, in a way
that may be described as "out of hand," by intuition, by exercise of the
quality of mind that sees visions and grasps truths beyond the realms of
common thought.

I am more and more impressed with the necessity of inspiration in life
if we are to be strong and serene, and so finally escape the pitfalls
of worry and conscience. By inspirations I do not mean belief in any
system or creed. It is not a stated belief that we need to begin with;
that may come in time. We need first to find in life, or at least in
nature, an essential beauty that makes its own true, inevitable response
within us. We must learn to love life so deeply that we feel its
tremendous significance, until we find in the sea and the sky the
evidence of an overbrooding spirit too great to be understood, but not
too great to satisfy the soul. This is a sort of mother religion--the
matrix from which all sects and creeds are born. Its existence in us
dignifies us and makes simple, purposeful, and receptive living almost
inevitable. We may not know why we are living according to the dictates
of our inspiration, but we shall live so and that is the important
consideration.

If I urge the acquirement of a religious conception that we may cure
the intolerable distress of worry, I do what I have already warned
against. It is so easy to make this mistake that I have virtually made
it on the same page with my warning. We have no right to seek so great a
thing as religious experience that we may be relieved of suffering.
Better go on with pain and distress than cheapen religion by making it a
remedy. We must seek it for its own sake, or rather, we must not seek it
at all, lest, like a dream, it elude us, or change into something else,
less holy. Nevertheless, it is true that if we will but look with open,
unprejudiced eyes, again and again, upon the sunrise or the stars above
us, we shall become conscious of a presence greater and more beautiful
than our minds can think. In the experience of that vision strength and
peace will come to us unbidden. We shall find our lives raised, as by an
unseen force, above the warfare of conscience and worry. We shall begin
to know the meaning of serenity and of that priceless, if not wholly to
be acquired, possession, the untroubled mind.

I am aware that I shall be misunderstood and perhaps ridiculed by my
colleagues when I attempt to discuss religion in any way. Theology is a
field in which I have had no training, but that is the very reason why I
dare write of it. I do not even assume that there is a God in the
traditional sense. The idea is too great to be made concrete and
literal. No single fact of nature can be fully understood by our finite
minds. But I do feel vaguely that the laws that compass us, and make our
lives possible, point always on--"beyond the realms of time and
space"--toward the existence of a mighty overruling spirit. If this is a
cold and inadequate conception of God, it is at least one that can be
held by any man without compromise.

The modern mind is apt to fail of religious understanding and support,
because of the arbitrary interpretations of religion which are
presented for our acceptance. It is what men say about religion, rather
than religion itself, that repels us. Let us think it out for ourselves.
If we are open to a simple, even primitive, conception of God, we may
still repudiate the creeds and doctrines, but we are likely to become
more tolerant of those who find them true and good. We shall be likely
in time to find the religion of Christ understandable and
acceptable--warm and quick with life. The man who ungrudgingly opens his
heart to the God of nature will be religious in the simplest possible
sense. He may worry because of the things he cannot altogether
understand, and because he falls so far short of the implied ideal. But
he will have enlarged his life so much that the common worries will find
little room--he will be too full of the joy of living to spend much
conscious thought in worry. Such a man will realize that he cannot
afford to spend his time and strength in regretting his past mistakes.
There is too much in the future. What he does in the future, not what he
has failed to do in the past, will determine the quality of his life. He
knows this, and the knowledge sends him into that future with courage
and with strength. Finally, in some indefinable way, character will
become more important to him than physical health even. Illness is half
compensated when a man realizes that it is not what he accomplishes in
the world, but what he _is_ that really counts, which puts him in touch
with the creative forces of God and raises him out of the aimless and
ordinary into a life of inspiration and joy.



II

RELIGIO MEDICI


    At all events, it is certain that if any medical man had come to
    Middlemarch with the reputation of having definite religious
    views, of being given to prayer and of otherwise showing an
    active piety, there would have been a general presumption
    against his medical skill.
                GEORGE ELIOT.

When a medically educated man talks and writes of religion and of God,
he is rightly enough questioned by his brothers--who are too busy with
the hard work of practice to be concerned with anything but material
problems. To me the word "God" is symbolic of the power which created
and which maintains the universe. The sunrise and the stars of heaven
give me some idea of his majesty, the warmth and tenderness of human
love give me some idea of his divine love. That is all I know, but it is
enough to make life glow; it is enough to inspire the most intense
devotion to any good cause; it is enough to make me bear suffering with
some degree of patience; and it is enough, finally, to give me some
confidence and courage even in the face of the great mystery of death.
Why this or another conception of God should produce such a profound
result upon any one, I do not know, except that in some obscure way it
connects the individual with the divine plan, and does not leave him
outside in despair and loneliness. However that may be, it will be
conceded that a religious conception of some kind does much toward
justifying life, toward making it strong and livable, and so has
directly to do with certain important problems of illness and health.
The most practical medical man will admit that any illness is made
lighter and more likely to recover in the presence of hope and serenity
in the mind of the patient.

Naturally the great bulk of medical practice calls for no handling other
than that of the straight medical sort. A man comes in with a crushed
finger, a girl with anæmia--the way is clear. It is only in deeper, more
intricate departments of medicine that we altogether fail. The
bacteriologist and the pathologist have no use for mental treatment, in
their departments. But when we come to the case of the nervously
broken-down school teacher, or the worn-out telegrapher, that is another
matter. Years may elapse before work can be resumed--years of dependence
and anxiety. Here, a new view of life is often more useful than drugs, a
view that accepts the situation reasonably after a while, that does not
grope blindly and impatiently for a cure, but finds in life an
inspiration that makes it good in spite of necessary suffering and
limitations. Often enough we cannot promise a cure, but we must be
prepared to give something better.

A great deal of the fatigue and unhappiness of the world is due to the
fact that we do not go deep enough in our justification for work or
play, or for any experience, happy or sad. There is a good deal of a
void after we have said, "Art for art's sake," or "Play for the joy of
playing," or even after we have said, "I am working for the sake of my
family, or for some one who needs my help." That is not enough; and
whether we realize it or not, the lack of deeper justification is at the
bottom of a restlessness and uncertainty which we might not be willing
to acknowledge, but which nevertheless is very real.

I am not satisfied when some moralist says, "Be good and you will be
happy." The kind of happiness that comes from a perfunctory goodness is
a thing which I cannot understand, and which I certainly do not want. If
I work and play and serve and employ, making up the fabric of a busy
life, if I attain a very real happiness, I am tormented by the desire to
know why I am doing it, and I am not satisfied with the answer I
usually get. The patient may not be cured when he is relieved of his
anæmia, or when his emaciation has given place to the plumpness and
suppleness and physical strength that we call health. The man whom we
look upon as well, and who has never known physical illness, is not well
in the larger sense until he knows why he is working, why he is living,
why he is filling his life with activity. In spite of the elasticity and
spring of the world's interests, there must come often, and with a kind
of fatal insistence, the deep demand for a cause, for a justification.
If there is not an adequate significance behind it, life, with all its
courage and accomplishment, seems but a sorry thing, so full of pathos,
even in its brightest moments, so shadowed with a sense of loss and of
finality that the bravest heart may well fail and the truest courage
relax, supported only by the assurance that this way lies happiness or
that right is right.

What is this knowledge that the world is seeking, but can never find?
What is this final justification? If we seek it in its completeness, we
are doomed always to be ill and unsatisfied. If we are willing to look
only a little way into the great question, if we are willing to accept a
little for the whole, content because it is manifestly part of the final
knowledge, and because we know that final knowledge rests with God
alone, we shall understand enough to save us from much sorrow and
painful incompleteness.

There is, in the infinitely varied and beautiful world of nature, and in
the hearts of men, so much of beauty and truth that it is a wonder we do
not all realize that these things of common life may be in us and for us
the daily and hourly expression of the infinite being we call God. We do
not see God, but we do feel and know so much that we may fairly believe
to be of God that we do not need to see Him face to face. It is
something more than imagination to feel that it is the life of God in
our lives, so often unrecognized or ignored, that prompts us to all the
greatness and the inspiration and the accomplishment of the world. If we
could know more clearly the joy of such a conception, we should dry up
at its source much of the unhappiness which is, in a deep and subtle
way, at the bottom of many a nervous illness and many a wretched
existence.

The happiness which is found in the recognition of kinship with God,
through the common things of life, in the experiences which are so
significant that they could not spring from a lesser source, the
happiness which is not sought, but which is the inevitable result of
such recognition--this experience goes a long way toward making life
worth living.

If we do have this conception of life, then some of the old, old
questions that have vexed so many dwellers upon the earth will no longer
be a source of unhappiness or of illness of mind or body. The question
of immortality, for instance, which has made us afraid to die, will no
longer be a question--we shall not need to answer it, in the presence of
God, in our lives and in the world about us. We shall be content finally
to accept whatever is in store for us--so it be the will of God. We may
even look for something better than mere immortality, something more
divine than our gross conception of eternal life.

This is a religion that I believe medical men may teach without
hesitation whenever the need shall arise. I know well enough that many a
blunt if kindly man cannot bring himself to say these words, even if he
believes them, but I do think that in some measure they point the way to
what may wisely be taught.

There is a practice of medicine--the common practice--that is concerned
with the body only, and with its chemical and mechanical reactions. We
can have nothing but respect and admiration for the men who go on year
after year in the eager pursuit of this calling. We know that such a
work is necessary, that it is just as important as the educational
practice of which I write. We know that without the physical side
medicine would fail of its usefulness and that disease and death would
reap far richer harvests: I only wish the two naturally related aspects
of our dealing with patients might not be so completely separated that
they lose sight of each other. As a matter of fact, both elements are
necessary to our human welfare. If medicine devotes itself altogether to
the cure and prevention of physical disease, it will miss half of its
possibilities. It is equally true that if we forget the physical
necessities in our zeal for spiritual hygiene, we shall get and deserve
complete and humiliating failure. Many men will say, "Why mix the two?
Why not let the preachers and the philosophers preach and the doctors
follow their own ways?" For the most part this may have to be the
arrangement, but the doctor who can see and treat the spiritual needs of
his patient will always be more likely to cure in the best sense than
the doctor who sees only half of the picture. On the other hand, the
philosopher is likely to be a comparatively poor doctor, because he
knows nothing of medicine, and so can see only the other half of the
picture. There is much to be said for the religion of medicine if it can
be kept free from cant, if it can be simple and rational enough to be
available for the whole world.



III

THOUGHT AND WORK


    I wish I had a trade!--It would animate my arms and tranquilize
    my brain.
                SENANCOUR.

    "Doe ye nexte thynge."--_Old English Proverb_.

Since our minds are so constantly filled with anxiety, there would seem
to be at least one sure way to be rid of it--to stop thinking.

A great many people believe that the mind will become less effective,
that life will become dull and purposeless, unless they are constantly
thinking and planning and arranging their affairs. I believe that the
mind may easily and wisely be free from conscious thought a good deal of
the time, and that the greatest progress and development in mind often
comes when the thinker is virtually at rest, when his mind is to all
intents and purposes blank. The busy, unconscious mind does its best
work in the serenity of an atmosphere which does not interfere and
confuse.

It is true that the greatest conceptions do not come to the untrained
and undisciplined mind. But do we want great conceptions all the time?
There is a technical training for the mind which is, of course,
necessary for special accomplishments, but this is quite another matter.
Even this kind of thought must not obtrude too much, lest we become
conscious of our mental processes and so end in confusion.

One of the greatest benefits of work with the hands, or of objective and
constructive work with the mind, is that it saves us from unending hours
of thinking. Work should, of course, find its fullest justification as
an expression of faith. If we have ever so dim a vision of a greater
significance in life, of its close relationship to infinite things, we
become thereby conscious of the need of service, of the need of work. It
is the easy, natural expression of our faith, the inevitable result of
a spiritual contact with the great working forces of the world. It is
work above all else that saves us from the disasters of conflicting
thought.

A few years ago a young man came to me, suffering from too much
thinking. He had just been graduated from college and his head was full
of confused ideas and emotions. He was also very tired, having
overworked in his preparation for examinations, and because he had not
taken the best care of his body. The symptoms he complained of were
sleeplessness and worry, together with the inevitable indigestion and
headache. Of course, as a physician, I went over the bodily functions
carefully, and studied, as far as I might, into the organic conditions.
I could find no evidence of physical disease. I did not say, "There is
nothing the matter with you"; for the man was sick. I told him that he
was tired, that he had thought too much, that he was too much concerned
about himself, and that as a result of all this his bodily functions
were temporarily upset. He thought he ought to worry about himself,
because otherwise he would not be trying to get well. I explained to him
that this mistaken obligation was the common reason for worry, and that
in this case, at least, it was quite unnecessary and even harmful for
him to go on thinking about himself. That helped a little, but not
nearly enough, because when a man has overworked, when he has begun to
worry, and when his various bodily functions show results of worry, no
reasoning, no explanations, can wholly relieve him. I said to this young
man, "In spite of your discomforts, in spite of your depression and
concern in regard to yourself, you will get well if you will stop
thinking about the matter altogether. You must be first convinced that
it is best for you to stop thinking, that no harm or violence can
result, and then you must be helped in this direction by going to work
with your hands--that will be life and progress, it will lead you to
health."

Fortunately I had had some experience with nervous illness, and I knew
that unless I managed for this man the character and extent of his work,
he would not only fail in it, but of its object, and so become more
confused and discouraged. I knew the troubled mind, in this instance,
might find its solace and its relief in work, but that I must choose the
work carefully to suit the individual, and I must see that the nervously
fatigued body was not pushed too hard.

In the town where I live is a blacksmith shop, presided over by a genial
old man who has been a blacksmith since he was a boy, and in whose hands
iron is like clay. I took my patient down to the smithy and said, "Here
is a young man whom I want to put to work. He will pay for the chance. I
want you first to teach him to make hand-wrought nails." This was a
good deal of a joke to the smith and to the patient, but they saw that I
was in earnest and agreed to go ahead. We got together the proper tools
and proceeded to make nails, a job which is really not very difficult.
After an hour's work, I called off my patient, much to his disgust, for
he was just beginning to be interested. But I knew that if he were to
keep on until fatigue should come, the whole matter would end in
trouble. So the next day, with some new overalls and a leather apron
added to the equipment, we proceeded to another hour's work. We went on
this way for three or four days, before the time was increased.

The interest of the patient was always fresh, he was eager for more, and
he did not taste the dregs of fatigue. Yet he did get the wholesome
exercise, and he did get the strong turning of the mind from its worry
and concern. Of course, the rest of the day was taken care of in one
way or another, but the work was the central feature. In a week, we were
at it two hours a day, in three weeks, four hours, and in a month, five
hours. He had made a handsome display of hand-wrought nails, a superior
line of pokers and shovels for fireplaces, together with a number of
very respectable andirons. On each of these larger pieces of handiwork
my patient had stamped his initials with a little steel die that was
made for him. Each piece was his own, each piece was the product of his
own versatility and his own strength. His pride and pleasure in this
work were very great, and well they might be, for it is a fine thing to
have learned to handle so intractable a material as iron. But in
handling the iron patiently and consistently until he could do it
without too much conscious thinking, and so without effort, he had also
learned to handle himself naturally, more simply and easily.

As a matter of fact, the illness which had brought this boy to me was
pretty nearly cured by his blacksmithing, because it was an illness of
the mind and of the nerves, and not of the body, although the body had
suffered in its turn. That young man, instead of becoming a nervous
invalid as he might have done, is now working steadily in partnership
with his father, in business in the city. I had found him a very
interesting patient, full of originality and not at all the tedious and
boresome person he might have been had I listened day after day, week
after week to the recital of his ills. I was willing to listen,--I did
listen,--but I also gave him a new trend of life, which pretty soon made
his complaints sound hollow and then disappear.

Of course, the problem is not always so simple as this, and we must
often deal with complexities of body and mind requiring prolonged
investigation and treatment. I cite this case because it shows clearly
that relief from some forms of nervous illness can come when we stop
thinking, when we stop analyzing, and then back up our position with
prescribed work.

There may be some nervous invalids who read these lines who will say,
"But I have tried so many times to work and have failed." Unfortunately,
such failure must often occur unless we can proceed with care and with
understanding. But the principle remains true, although it must be
modified in an infinite variety to meet the changing conditions of
individuals.

I see a great many people who are conscientiously trying to get well
from nervous exhaustion. They almost inevitably try too hard. They think
and worry too much about it, and so exhaust themselves the more. This is
the greater pity because it is the honest and the conscientious people
who make the greatest effort. It is very hard for them to realize that
they must stop thinking, stop trying, and if possible get to work
before they can accomplish their end. We shall have to repeat to them
over and over again that they must stop thinking the matter out, because
the thing they are attempting to overcome is too subtle to be met in
that way. So, if they are fortunate, they may rid themselves of the
vagueness and uncertainty of life, until all the multitude of details
which go to make up life lose their desultoriness and their lack of
meaning, and they may find themselves no longer the subjects of physical
or nervous exhaustion.



IV

IDLENESS


    O ye! who have your eyeballs vex'd and tir'd,
      Feast them upon the wideness of the sea.
                KEATS.

    Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market,
    is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness
    implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal
    identity.
                STEVENSON.

It is an unfortunate fact that very few people are able to be idle
successfully. I think it is not so much because we misuse idleness as
because we misinterpret it that the long days become increasingly
demoralizing. I would ask no one to accept a forced idleness without
objection or regret. Such an acceptance would imply a lack of spirit, to
say the least. But idleness and rest are not incompatible; neither are
idleness and service, nor idleness and contentment. If we can look upon
rest as a preparation for service, if we can make it serve us in the
opportunity it gives for quiet growth and legitimate enjoyment, then it
is fully justified and it may offer advantages and opportunity of the
best.

The chief trouble with idleness is that it so often means introspection,
worry, and impatience, especially to those conscientious souls who would
fain be about their business.

I have for a long time been accustomed to combat the worry and fret of
necessary idleness--not by forbidding it, not by advising struggle and
fight against it, but by insisting that the best way to get rid of it is
to leave it alone, to accept it. When we do this there may come a kind
of fallow time in which the mind enriches and refreshes itself beyond
our conception.

I would rather my patient who must rest for a long time would give up
all thought of method, would give up all idea of making his mind follow
any particular line of thought or absence of thought. I know that the
mind which has been under conscious control a good deal of the time is
apt to rebel at this freedom and to indulge in all kinds of alarming
extravagances. I am sure, however, that the best way to meet these
demands for conscious control is to be careless of them, to be willing
to experience these extravagances and inconsistencies without fear, in
the belief that finally will come a quiet and peace which will be all
that we can ask. The peace of mind that is unguided, in the conscious
and literal sense, is a thing which too few of us know.

Mr. Arnold Bennett, in his little book, "How to Live on Twenty-four
Hours a Day," teaches that we should leave no time unused in our lives;
that we should accomplish a great deal more and be infinitely more
effective and progressive if we devoted our minds to the definite
working-out of necessary problems whenever those times occur in which we
are apt to be desultory. I wish here to make a plea for desultoriness
and for an idleness which goes even beyond the idleness of the man who
reads the newspaper and forgets what he has read. It seems to me better,
whether we are sick or well, to allow long periods in our lives when we
think only casually. To the good old adage, "Work while you work and
play while you play," we might well add, "Rest while you rest," lest in
the end you should be unable successfully either to work or play.

A man is not necessarily condemned to tortures of mind because he must
rest for a week or a month or a year. I know that there must be anxious
times, especially when idleness means dependence, and when it brings
hardship to those who need our help. But the invalid must not try
constantly to puzzle the matter out. If we do not make ourselves sick
with worry, we shall be able sometime to approach active life with
sufficient frankness and force. It is the constant effort of the poor,
tired mind to solve its problems that not only fails of its object, but
plunges the invalid deeper into discouragement and misunderstanding. How
cruel this is, and how unfortunate that it should come more commonly to
those who try the hardest to overcome their handicaps, to throw off the
yoke of idleness and to be well.

When you have tried your best to get back to your work and have failed,
when you have done this not once but many times, it is inevitable that
misunderstanding should creep in, inevitable that you should question
very deeply and doubt not infrequently. Yet the chances are that one of
the reasons for your failure is that you have tried too hard, that you
have not known how to rest. When you have learned how to rest, when you
have learned to put off thinking and planning until the mind becomes
fresh and clear, when you are in a fair way to know the joy of idleness
and the peace of rest, you are a great deal more likely to get back to
efficiency and to find your way along the great paths of activity into
the world of life.

It is not so much the idleness, then, as the attempt to overcome its
irksomeness, that makes this condition painful. The invalid in bed is in
a trap, to be tormented by his thoughts unless he knows the meaning of
successful idleness. This knowledge may come to him by such strategy as
I have suggested--by giving up the struggle against worry and fret; but
peace will come surely, steadily, "with healing in its wings," when the
mind is changed altogether, when life becomes free because of a growth
and development that finds significance even in idleness, that sees the
world with wise and patient eyes.

In a way it does not matter, your physical condition or mine, if our
"eyes have seen the glory" that deifies life and makes even its waste
places beautiful. What is that view from your window as you lie in your
bed? A bit of the sea, if you are fortunate, a corner of garden, surely,
the top of an elm tree against the blue. What is it but the revelations
of a God in the world? There is enough that is sad and unhappy, but over
all are these simple, ineffable things. If the garden is an expression
of God in the world, then the world and life are no longer meaningless.
Even idleness becomes in some degree bearable because it is a part of a
significant world.

Unfortunately, the idleness of disability often means pain, the wear and
tear of physical or nervous suffering. That is another matter. We cannot
meet it fully with any philosophy. My patients very often beg to know
the best way to bear pain, how they may overcome the attacks of "nerves"
that are harder to bear than pain. To such a question I can only say
that the time to bear pain is before and after. Live in such a way in
the times of comparative comfort that the attacks are less likely to
appear and easier to bear when they do come. After the pain or the
"nervous" attack is over, that is the time to prevent the worst features
of another. Forget the distress; live simply and happily in spite of the
memory, and you will have done all that the patient himself can do to
ward off or to make tolerable the next occasion of suffering. Pain
itself--pure physical pain--is a matter for the physician's judgment. It
is his business to seek out the causes and apply the remedy.



V

RULES OF THE GAME


    It is not growing like a tree
    In bulk, doth make man better be.
                BEN JONSON.

    It is a good thing to have a sound body, better to have a sane
    mind, but neither is to be compared to that aggregate of virile
    and decent qualities which we call character.
                THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

    The only effective remedy against inexorable necessity is to
    yield to it.
                PETRARCH.

When I go about among my patients, most of them, as it happens,
"nervously" sick, I sometimes stop to consider why it is they are ill. I
know that some are so because of physical weakness over which they have
no control, that some are suffering from the effects of carelessness,
some from wilfulness, and more from simple ignorance of the rules of the
game. There are so many rules that no one will ever know them all, but
it seems that we live in a world of laws, and that if we transgress
those laws by ever so little, we must suffer equally, whether our
transgression is a mistake or not, and whether we happen to be saints or
sinners. There are laws also which have to do with the recovery of poise
and balance when these have been lost. These laws are less well observed
and understood than those which determine our downfall.

The more gross illnesses, from accident, contagion, and malignancy, we
need not consider here, but only those intangible injuries that disable
people who are relatively sound in the physical sense. It is true that
nervous troubles may cause physical complications and that physical
disease very often coexists with nervous illness, but it is better for
us now to make an artificial separation. Just what happens in the human
economy when a "nervous breakdown" comes, nobody seems to know, but mind
and body coöperate to make the patient miserable and helpless. It may
be nature's way of holding us up and preventing further injury. The
hold-up is severe, usually, and becomes in itself a thing to be managed.

The rules we have wittingly or unwittingly broken are often unknown to
us, but they exist in the All-Wise Providence, and we may guess by our
own suffering how far we have overstepped them. If a man runs into a
door in the dark, we know all about that,--the case is simple,--but if
he runs overtime at his office and hastens to be rich with the result of
a nervous dyspepsia--that is a mystery. Here is a girl who "came out"
last year. She was apparently strong and her mother was ambitious for
her social progress. That meant four nights a week for several months at
dances and dinners, getting home at 3 A.M. or later. It was gay and
delightful while it lasted, but it could not last, and the girl went to
pieces suddenly; her back gave out because it was not strong enough to
stand the dancing and the long-continued physical strain. The nerves
gave out because she did not give her faculties time to rest, and
perhaps because of a love affair that supervened. The result was a year
of invalidism, and then, because the rules of recovery were not
understood, several years more of convalescence. Such common rules
should be well enough understood, but they are broken everywhere by the
wisest people.

The common case of the broken-down school teacher is more unfortunate.
This tragedy and others like it are more often, I believe, due to unwise
choice of profession in the first place. The women's colleges are
turning out hundreds of young women every year who naturally consider
teaching as the field most appropriate and available. Probably only a
very small proportion of these girls are strong enough physically or
nervously to meet the growing demands of the schools. They may do well
for a time, some of them unusually well, for it is the sensitive,
high-strung organism that is appreciative and effective. After a while
the worry and fret of the requirements and the constant nag of the
schoolroom have their effect upon those who are foredoomed to failure in
that particular field. The plight of such young women is particularly
hard, for they are usually dependent upon their work.

It is, after all, not so much the things we do as the way we do them,
and what we think about them, that accomplishes nervous harm. Strangely
enough, the sense of effort and the feeling of our own inadequacy damage
the nervous system quite as much as the actual physical effort. The
attempt to catch up with life and with affairs that go on too fast for
us is a frequent and harmful deflection from the rules of the game. Few
of us avoid it. Life comes at us and goes by very fast. Tasks multiply
and we are inadequate, responsibilities increase before we are ready.
They bring fatigue and confusion. We cannot shirk and be true. Having
done all you reasonably can, stop, whatever may be the consequences.
That is a rule I would enforce if I could. To do more is to drag and
fail, so defeating the end of your efforts. If it turns out that you are
not fit for the job you have undertaken, give it up and find another, or
modify that one until it comes within your capacity. It takes courage to
do this--more courage sometimes than is needed to make us stick to the
thing we are doing. Rarely, however, will it be necessary for us to give
up if we will undertake and consider for the day only such part of our
task as we are able to perform. The trouble is that we look at our work
or our responsibility all in one piece, and it crushes us. If we cannot
arrange our lives so that we may meet their obligations a little at a
time, then we must admit failure and try again, on what may seem a
lower plane. That is what I consider the brave thing to do. I would
honor the factory superintendent, who, finding himself unequal to his
position, should choose to work at the bench where he could succeed
perfectly.

The habit of uncertainty in thought and action, bred, as it sometimes
is, from a lack of faith in man and in God, is, nevertheless, a thing to
be dealt with sometimes by itself. Not infrequently it is a petty habit
that can be corrected by the exercise of a little will power. I believe
it is better to decide wrong a great many times--doing it quickly--than
to come to a right decision after weakly vacillating. As a matter of
fact, we may trust our decisions to be fair and true if our life's
ideals are beautiful and true.

We may improve our indecisions a great deal by mastering their unhappy
details, but we shall not finally overcome them until life rings true
and until all our acts and thoughts become the solid and inevitable
expression of a healthy growing regard for the best in life, a call to
right living that is no mean dictum of policy, but which is renewed
every morning as the sun comes out of the sea. However inconsequential
the habit of indecision may seem, it is really one of the most disabling
of bad habits. Its continuance contributes largely to the sum of nervous
exhaustion. Whatever its origin, whether it stands in the relation of
cause or effect, it is an indulgence that insidiously takes the snap and
sparkle out of life and leaves us for the time being colorless and weak.

Next to uncertainty, an uninspired certainty is wrecking to the best of
human prospects. The man whose one idea is of making himself and his
family materially comfortable, or even rich, may not be coming to
nervous prostration, but he is courting a moral prostration that will
deny him all the real riches of life and that will in the end reward
him with a troubled mind, a great, unsatisfied longing, unless, to be
sure, he is too smug and satisfied to long for anything.

The larger life leads us inevitably away from ourselves, away from the
super-requirements of our families. It demands of them and of ourselves
an unselfishness that is born of a love that finds its expression in the
service of God. And what is the service of God if it is not such an
entering into the divine purposes and spirit that we become with God
re-creators in the world--working factors in the higher evolution of
humanity? While we live we shall get and save, we shall use and spend,
we shall serve the needs of those dependent upon us, but we shall not
line the family nest so softly that our children become powerless. We
shall not confine our charities to the specified channels, where our
names will be praised and our credit increased. We shall give and serve
in secret places with our hearts in our deeds. Then we may possess the
untroubled mind, a treasure too rich to be computed. We shall not have
it for the seeking; it may exist in the midst of what men may call
privations and sorrows; but it will exist in a very large sense and it
will be ours. The so-called hard-headed business man who never allows
himself to be taken advantage of, whose dealings are always strict and
uncompromising, is very apt to be a particularly miserable invalid when
he is ill. I cannot argue in favor of business laxity,--I know the
imperative need of exactness and finality,--but I do believe that if we
are to possess the untroubled mind we must make our lives larger than
the field of dollars and cents. The charity that develops in us will
make us truly generous and free from the reaction of hardness.

It is a great temptation to go on multiplying the rules of the game.
There are so many sensible and necessary pieces of advice which we all
need to have emphasized. That is the course we must try to avoid. The
child needs to be told, arbitrarily for a while, what is right, and what
is wrong, that he must do this, and he must not do that. The time comes,
however, when the growing instinct toward right living is the thing to
foster--not the details of life which will inevitably take care of
themselves if the underlying principle is made right. It must be the
ideal of moral teaching to make clear and pure the source of action.
Then the stream will be clear and pure. Such a stream will purify itself
and neutralize the dangerous inflow along its banks. It is true that
great harm may come from the polluted inflows, but they will be less and
less harmful as the increasing current from the good source flows down.

We shall have to look well to our habits lest serious ills befall, but
that must never be the main concern or we shall find ourselves living
very narrow and labored lives; we shall find that we are failing to
observe one of the most important rules of the game.



VI

THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT


    Beyond the ugly actual, lo, on every side,
    Imagination's limitless domain.
                BROWNING.

    He that too much refines his delicacy will always endanger his
    quiet.
                SAMUEL JOHNSON.

    The great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has rendered
    them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life.
                STEVENSON.

It has been my fortune as a physician to deal much with the so-called
nervous temperament. I have come both to fear and to love it. It is the
essence of all that is bright, imaginative, and fine, but it is as
unstable as water. Those who possess it must suffer--it is their lot to
feel deeply, and very often to be misunderstood by their more practical
friends. All their lives these people will shed tears of joy, and more
tears of sorrow. I would like to write of their joy, of the perfect
satisfaction, the true happiness that comes in creating new and
beautiful things, of the deep pleasure they have in the appreciation of
good work in others. But with the instinct of a dog trained for a
certain kind of hunting I find myself turning to the misfortunes and the
ills.

The very keenness of perception makes painful anything short of
perfection. What will such people do in our clanging streets? What of
those fine ears tuned to the most exquisite appreciation of sweet sound?
What of that refinement of hearing that detects the least departure from
the rhythm and pitch in complex orchestral music? And must they bear the
crash of steel on stone, the infernal clatter of traffic? Well, yes,--as
a matter of fact--they must, at least for a good many years to come,
until advancing civilization eliminates the city noise. But it is not
always great noises that disturb and distract. There is a story told of
a woman who became so sensitive to noise that she had her house made
sound-proof: there were thick carpets and softly closing doors;
everything was padded. The house was set back from a quiet street, but
that street was strewn with tanbark to check the sound of carriages.
Surely here was bliss for the sensitive soul. I need not tell the rest
of the story, how absolutely necessary noises became intolerable, and
the poor woman ended by keeping a man on the place to catch and silence
the tree toads and crickets.

There is nothing to excuse the careless and unnecessary noises of the
world--we shall dispose of them finally as we are disposing of
flamboyant signboards and typhoid flies. But meanwhile, and always, for
that matter, the sensitive soul must learn to adjust itself to
circumstances and conditions. This adjustment may in itself become a
fine art. It is really the art by which the painter excludes the
commonplace and irrelevant from his landscape. Sometimes we have to do
this consciously; for the most part, it should be a natural, unconscious
selection.

I am sure it is unwise to attempt at any time the dulling of the
appreciative sense for the sake of peace and comfort. Love and
understanding of the beautiful and true is too rare and fine a thing to
be lost or diminished under any circumstances. The cure, as I see it, is
to be found in the cultivation of the faculty that finds some good in
everything and everybody. This is the saving grace--it takes great bulks
of the commonplace and distils from the mass a few drops of precious
essence; it finds in the unscholarly and the imperfect, rare traces of
good; it sees in man, any man, the image of God, to be justified and
made evident only in the sublimity of death, perhaps, but usually to be
developed in life.

The nervous person is often morose and unsocial--perhaps because he is
not understood, perhaps because he falls so short of his own ideals.
Often he does not find kindred spirits anywhere. I do not think we
should drive such a man into conditions that hurt, but I do believe that
if he is truly artistic, and not a snob, he may lead himself into a
larger social life without too much sacrifice.

The sensitive, high-strung spirit that does not give of its own best
qualities to the world of its acquaintance, that does not express itself
in some concrete way, is always in danger of harm. Such a spirit turned
in upon itself is a consuming fire. The spirit will burn a long time and
suffer much if it does not use its heat to warm and comfort the world of
need.

Real illness makes the nervous temperament a much more formidable
difficulty--all the sensitive faculties are more sensitive--irritability
becomes an obsession and idleness a terror.

The nervous temperament under irritation is very prone to become
selfish--and very likely to hide behind this selfishness, calling it
temperament. The man who flies into a passion when he is disturbed, or
who spends his days in torment from the noises of the street; the woman
of high attainment who has retired into herself, who is moody and
unresponsive,--these unfortunates have virtually built a wall about
their lives, a wall which shuts out the world of life and happiness.
From the walls of this prison the sounds of discord and annoyance are
thrown back upon the prisoner intensified and multiplied. The wall is
real enough in its effect, but will cease to exist when the prisoner
begins to go outside, when he begins to realize his selfishness and his
mistake. Then the noises and the irritations will be lost in the wider
world that is open to him. After all, it is only through unselfish
service in the world of men that this broadening can come.

There is no lack of opportunity for service. Perhaps the simplest and
most available form of service is charity,--the big, professional kind,
of course,--and beyond that the greater field of intimate and personal
charity. I know a girl of talent and ability--herself a nervous
invalid--sick and helpless for the lack of a little money which would
give her a chance to get well. I do not mean money for luxuries, for
foolish indulgences, but money to buy opportunity--money that would lift
her out of the heavy morass of poverty and give her a chance. She falls
outside the beaten path of charity. She is not reached by the usual
philanthropies. I also know plenty of people who could help that girl
without great sacrifice. They will not do it because they give money to
the regular charities--they will not do it because sometimes generosity
has been abused. So they miss the chance of broadening and developing
their own lives.

I know well enough that objective interest can rarely be forced--it
must usually come the other way about--through the broadening of life
which makes it inevitable. Sometimes I wish I could force that kind of
development, that kind of charity. Sometimes I long to take the rich
neurasthenic and make him help his brother, make him develop a new art
that shall save people from sorrow and loss. We are all together in this
world, and all kin; to recognize it and to serve the needs of the
unfortunate as we would serve our own children is the remedy for many
ills. It is the new art, the final and greatest of all artistic
achievements; it warms our hearts and opens our lives to all that is
wholesome and good. This is one of the crises in which my theory of
"inspiration first" may fail. Here the charity may have to come first,
may have to be insisted upon before there can be any inspiration or any
further joy in life. It is not always charity in the usual sense that is
required; sometimes the charity that gives something besides money is
best. But charity in any good sense means self-forgetfulness, and that
is a long way on the road to nervous health. Give of yourself, give of
your substance, and you will cease to be troubled with the penalties of
selfishness. Then take the next step--that gives not because life has
come back, but because the world has become larger and warmer and
happier. When the giver gives of his sympathy and of his means because
he wants to,--not because he has to do so,--he will begin to know what I
mean when I say it is better to have the inspiration first.



VII

SELF-CONTROL


    He only earns his freedom and existence
    Who daily conquers them anew.
                GOETHE.

A good many writers on self-control and kindred subjects insist that we
shall conscientiously and consciously govern our mental lives. They say,
"You must get up in the morning with determination to be cheerful." They
insist that in spite of annoyance or trouble you shall keep a smiling
face, and affirm to yourself over and over again the denial of
annoyance.

I do not like this kind of self-control. I wish I could admire it and
approve it, but I find I cannot because it seems to me self-conscious
and superficial. It is better than nothing and unquestionably adds
greatly to the sum of human happiness. But I do not think we ought to be
cheerful if we are consumed with trouble and sorrow. The fact is we
ought not to be for long beyond a natural cheerfulness that comes from
the deepest possible sources. While we are sad, let us be so, simply and
naturally; but we must pray that the light may come to us in our sorrow,
that we may be able soon and naturally to put aside the signs of
mourning.

The person who thinks little of his own attitude of mind is more likely
to be well controlled and to radiate happiness than one who must
continually prompt himself to worthy thoughts. The man whose heart is
great with understanding of the sorrow and pathos of life is far more
apt to be brave and fine in his own trouble than one who must look to a
motto or a formula for consolation and advice. Deep in the lives of
those who permanently triumph over sorrow there is an abiding peace and
joy. Such peace cannot come even from ample experience in the material
world. Despair comes from that experience sometimes, unless the heart
is open to the vital spirit that lies beyond all material things, that
creates and renews life and that makes it indescribably beautiful and
significant. Experience of material things is only the beginning. In it
and through it we may have experience of the wider life that surrounds
the material.

Our hearts must be opened to the courage that comes unbidden when we
feel ourselves to be working, growing parts of the universe of God. Then
we shall have no more sorrow and no more joy in the pitiful sense of the
earth, but rather an exaltation which shall make us masters of these and
of ourselves. We shall have a sympathy and charity that shall need no
promptings, but that flow from us spontaneously into the world of
suffering and need.

Beethoven was of a sour temper, according to all accounts, but he wrote
his symphonies in the midst of tribulations under which few men would
have worked at all. When we have felt something of the spirit that makes
work inevitable, it will be as though we had heard the eternal harmonies.
We shall write our symphonies, build our bridges, or do our lesser tasks
with dauntless purpose, even though the possessions that men count dear
are taken from us. Suppose we can do very little because of some
infirmity: if that little has in it the larger inspiration, it will be
enough to make life full and fine. The joy of a wider life is not
obtainable in its completeness; it is only through a lifetime of service
and experience that we can approach it. That is the proof of its divine
origin--its unattainableness. "God keep you from the she wolf and from
your heart's deepest desire," is an old saying of the Rumanians. If we
fully obtain our desires, we prove their unworthiness. Does any one
suppose that Beethoven attained his whole heart's desire in his music?
He might have done so had he been a lesser man. He was not a cheerful
companion. That is unfortunate, and shows that he failed in complete
inspiration and in the ordinary kind of self-control. He was at least
sincere, and that helped not a little to make him what he was. I would
almost rather a man would be morose and sincere than cheerful from a
sense of duty.

Our knowledge of the greater things of life must always be substantiated
and worked out into realities of service, or else we shall be weak and
ineffective. The charity that balks at giving, reacts upon a man and
deadens him. I am always insisting that we must not live and serve
through a sense of duty, but that we must find the inspiration first. It
is better to give ourselves to service not for the sake of finding God,
but because we have found Him and because our souls have grown in the
finding until we cannot help giving. If we have grown to such a stature
we shall be able to meet sorrow and loss bravely and simply. We shall
feel for ourselves and for others in their troubles as Forbes Robertson
did when he wrote to his friend who had met with a great loss: "I pray
that you may never, never, never get over this sorrow, but through it,
into it, into the very heart of God." All this is very unworldly, no
doubt, and yet I will venture the assertion that such a standard and
such a method will come nearer to the mark of successful and
well-controlled living than the most carefully planned campaign of duty.
If we plan to make life fine, if we say, in effect, "I will be good and
cheerful, no matter what happens," we are beginning at the wrong end. We
may be able to work back from our mottoes to real living, but the
chances are we shall stop somewhere by the way, too confused and
uncertain to go on. Self-control, at its best, is not a conscious thing.
It is not well that we should try to be good, but that we should so
dignify our lives with the spirit of good that evil becomes well-nigh
impossible to us.



VIII

THE LIGHTER TOUCH


    Heart not so heavy as mine,
    Wending late home,
    As it passed my window
    Whistled itself a tune.
                EMILY DICKINSON.

I have never seen good come from frightening worriers. It is no doubt
wise to speak the truth, but it seems to me a mistake to say in public
print or in private advice that worry leads to tragedies of the worst
sort. No matter how hopeful we may be in our later teaching about the
possibilities of overcoming worry, the really serious worrier will
pounce upon the original tragic statement and apply it with terrible
insistence to his own case.

I would not minimize the seriousness of worry, but I am convinced that
we can rarely overcome it by direct voluntary effort. It does not go
until we forget it, and we do not forget it if we are always trying
consciously to overcome it. We worriers must go about our
business--other business than that of worry.

Life is serious--alas, too serious--and full enough of pathos. We cannot
joke about its troubles; they are real. But, at least, we need not
magnify them. Why should we act as though everything depended upon our
efforts, even the changing seasons and the blowing winds? No doubt we
are responsible for our own acts and thoughts and for the welfare of
those who depend upon us. The trouble is we take unnecessary
responsibilities so seriously that we overreach ourselves and defeat our
own good ends.

I would make my little world more blessedly careless--with an _abandon_
that loves life too much to spoil it with worry. I would cherish so
great a desire for my child's good that I could not scold and bear down
upon him for every little fault, making him a worrier too, but,
instead, I would guide him along the right path with pleasant words and
brave encouragement. The condemnation of faults is rarely constructive.

We had better say to the worriers, "Here is life; no matter what
unfortunate things you may have said or done, you must put all evil
behind you and live--simply, bravely, well." The greater the evil,
the greater the need of forgetting. Not flippantly, but reverently,
leave your misdeeds in a limbo where they may not rise to haunt you.
This great thing you may do, not with the idea of evading or escaping
consequences, but so that past evil may be turned into present and
future good. The criminal himself is coming to be treated this way. He
is no longer eternally reminded of his crime. He is taken out into the
sunshine and air and is given a shovel to dig with. A wonderful thing is
that shovel. With it he may bury the past and raise up a happier,
better future. We must care so much to expiate our sins that we are
willing to neglect them and live righteously. That is true repentance,
constructive repentance.

We cannot suddenly change our mental outlook and become happy when grief
has borne us down. "For the broken heart silence and shade,"--that is
fair and right. I would say to those who are unhappy, "Do not try to be
happy, you cannot force it; but let peace come to you out of the great
world of beauty that calmly surrounds our human suffering, and that
speaks to us quietly of God." Genuine laughter is not forced, but we may
let it come back into our lives if we know that it is right for it to
come.

We have all about us instances of the effectiveness of the lighter touch
as applied to serious matters. The life of the busy surgeon is a good
example. He may be, and usually is, brimming with sympathy, but if he
were to feel too deeply for all his patients, he would soon fail and
die. He goes about his work. He puts through a half-dozen operations in
a way that would send cold shivers down the back of the uninitiated. And
yet he is accurate and sure as a machine. If he were to take each case
upon his mind in a heavy, consequential way, if he were to give deep
concern to each ligature he ties, and if he were to be constantly afraid
of causing pain, he would be a poor surgeon. His work, instead of being
clean and sharp, would suffer from over-conscientiousness. He might
never finish an operation for fear his patient would bleed to death.
Such a man may be the reverse of flippant, and yet he may actually enjoy
his somber work. Cruel, bloodthirsty? Not at all. These men--the great
surgeons--are as tender as children. But they love their work, they
really care very deeply for their patients. The successful ones have the
lighter touch and they have no time for worry.

Sometimes we wish to arouse the public conscience. Do the long columns
of figures, the impressive statistics, wake men to activity? It is
rather the keen, bright thrust of the satirist that saves the day. Once
in a New England town meeting there was a movement for a much-needed new
schoolhouse. By the installation of skylights in the attic the old
building had been made to accommodate the overflow of pupils. The
serious speakers in favor of the new building had left the audience
cold, when a young man arose and said he had been up into the attic and
had seen the wonderful skylights that were supposed to meet the needs of
the children. "I have seen them," he said; "we used to call them
scuttles when I was a boy." A hundred thousand dollars was voted for the
new schoolhouse.

There is a natural gayety in most of us which helps more than we realize
to keep us sound. The pity is that when responsibilities come and
hardships come, we repress our lighter selves sternly, as though such
repression were a duty. Better let us guard the springs of happiness
very, very jealously. The whistling boy in the dark street does more
than cheer himself on the way. He actually protects himself from evil,
and brings courage not only to himself, but to those who hear him. I do
not hold for false cheerfulness that is sometimes affected, but a brave
show of courage in a forlorn hope will sometimes win the day. It is
infinitely more likely to win than a too serious realization of the
danger of defeat. The show of courage is often not a pretense at all,
but victory itself.

The need of the world is very great and its human destiny is in our
hands. Half of those who could help to right the wrongs are asleep or
too selfishly immersed in their own affairs. We need more helpers like
my friend of the skylights. Most of us are far too serious. The
slumberers will slumber on, and the worriers will worry, the serious
people will go ponderously about until some one shows them how
ridiculous they are and how pitiful.



IX

REGRETS AND FOREBODINGS


    Regret avails little--still less remorse--the one keeps alive
    the old offense, the other creates new offenses.
                GOETHE.

The unrepentant sinner walks abroad. Unfortunately for us moralists he
seems to be having a very good time. We must not condone him, though he
may be a very lovable person; neither must we altogether condemn him,
for he may be repentant in the very best way of all ways, the way that
forgets much and leaves behind more, because life is so fine that it
must not be spoiled, and because progress is in every way better than
retrospection. The fact is, that repentance is too often the fear of
punishment, and such fear is, to say the least, unmanly. I would rather
be a lovable sinner than one of the people who repent because they
cannot bear to think of the consequences. Knowledge and fear of
consequences undoubtedly keep a great many young people from the
so-called sins of ignorance. But there must be something behind
knowledge and fear of consequences to stop the youth of spirit from
doing what he is inclined to do. Over and over again we must go back to
the appreciation of life's dignity and beauty--to the consciousness of
the spirit of God behind and in the world if we are to find a balance
and a character that will "deliver us from evil."

When we have found this consciousness--when we live it and breathe it,
we shall be far less apt to sin, and when we have sinned, as we all must
in the course of our blundering lives, we shall not waste our time in
regret or in the fear of consequences. If the God we dream of is as
great as the sea, or as beautiful as a tree, we need not fear Him. He
will be tender, and just at the same time. He will be as forgiving as
He is strong. The best we can do, then, is to leave our sins in the hand
of God and go our way, sadder and wiser, maybe, but not regretting too
much, not fearing any more.

There is a new idea in medicine--the development of which has been one
of the most striking achievements of modern times--the idea of
psychanalysis as taught and advocated by Freud in Germany. The plan
is to study the subconscious mind of the nervous patient by means of
hypnotism, to assist the patient to recall all the mental experiences of
his past,--even his very early childhood,--and in this way to make clear
the origin of the misconceptions and the unfortunate impressions which
have presumably exerted their influence through the years. The new
system includes, also, the interpretation of dreams, their effect upon
the conscious life and their influence upon the mentality. Very
wonderful results are reported from the pursuit of this method. Many a
badly warped and twisted life has been straightened out and renewed when
the searchlight has revealed the hidden influences that have been at
work and which have made trouble. The repression of conscious or
unconscious feelings can no doubt change the whole mental life. We
should have the greatest respect for the men who are doing this work. It
requires, I am told, an almost unbelievable amount of patience and time
to accomplish the analysis. No doubt the adult judgment of childish
follies is a direct means of disposing of their harmful influence in
life, the surest way of losing the conscious or unconscious regrets that
sadden many lives. There are probably many cases of disturbed and
troubled mind that can be cured in this way only. The method does not
appeal to me because I am so strongly inclined to take people as they
are, to urge a forgetfulness that does not really forget, but which goes
on bravely to the development of life. This development cannot proceed
without the understanding that life may be made so beautiful that sins
and failures are lost in progress. Some of us may need the subtle
analysis of our lives to make clear the points where we went astray in
our thoughts and ideas, but many of us, fortunately, are able to take
ourselves for better or for worse, sins and all. Most of us ought to do
that, for the most part, if we are to progress and live. Sometimes the
revelations of evils we know not of result in complications rather than
simplification, as in the case of a boy who wrote to me and said that
since he had learned of his early sins he had made sure that he could
never be well. Instead of going into further analysis with him, I
assured him that, while it was undoubtedly his duty to regret all the
evil of his life, it was a still greater duty to go on and live the rest
of it well, and that he could do so if he would open his eyes to the
possibilities of unselfish service.

I am very much inclined to preach against self-analysis and the almost
inevitable regret and despair that accompany it.

One of my patients decided some time ago that her life was wasted, that
she had accomplished nothing. It was true that she had not the endurance
to meet the usual demands of social or even family life, and that for
long periods she had to give up altogether. But it happened that she had
the gift of musical understanding, that she had studied hard in younger
days. With a little urging the gift was made to grow again and to serve
not only the patient's own needs, but to bring very great pleasure to
every one who listened to her playing. That rare, true ability was worth
everything, and she came to realize it in time. The gift of musical
expression is a very great thing, and I succeeded in making this woman
understand that she should be happy in that ability even if nothing
else should be possible.

Often enough nothing that can compare with music exists, and life seems
wholly barren. Rather cold comfort it seems at first to assure a person
who is helpless that character is the greatest thing in the world, but
that is the final truth. The most limited and helpless life may glow
with it and be richer than imagination can believe. It is never time to
regret--and never time to despair. The less analysis the better. When it
comes to character, live, grow, and get a deeper and deeper
understanding of life--of life that is near to God and so capable of
wrong only as we turn away from Him. "Do not say things; what you are
stands over you and thunders so, I cannot hear what you say to the
contrary." We shall do well not to forget that, whatever failures or
mistakes we have made, there is infinite possibility ahead of us, that
character is the greatest thing in the world, and that most good
character has been built upon mistakes and failures. I believe there is
no sin which may not make up the fabric of its own forgiveness in the
living of a free, self-sacrificing life. I know of no bodily ill nor
handicap which we may not eventually rise above and beyond by means of
brave spiritual progress. The body may fail us, but the spirit reaches
on and into the great world of God.



X

THE VIRTUES


    The virtues hide their vanquished fires
    Within that whiter flame--
    Till conscience grows irrelevant
    And duty but a name.
                FREDERICK LAWRENCE KNOWLES.

In most books I have read on "nerves" and similar subjects, advice is
given, encouragement is given, but the necessity for patience is not
made clear. Patience is typical of all the other virtues. Many a man has
followed the best of advice for a time, and has become discouraged
because the promised results did not materialize. It is disappointing,
surely, to have lived upon a diet for months only to find that you still
have dyspepsia, or to have followed certain rules of morality with great
precision and enthusiasm without obtaining the untroubled mind. We are
accustomed to see results in the material world and naturally expect
them everywhere. The trouble is we do not always recognize improvements
when we see them, and we insist upon certain preconceived changes as a
result of our endeavors. The physician is apt rashly to promise definite
physical accomplishments in a given time. He is courting disappointment
and distrust when he does so. We all want to get relief from our
symptoms, and we are inclined to insist upon a particular kind of relief
so strongly that we fail to appreciate the possibilities of another and
a better relief which may be at hand. The going astray in this
particular is sometimes very unfortunate. I have known a man to rush
frantically from one doctor to another, trying to obtain relief for a
particular pain or discomfort, unwilling to rest long enough to find out
that the trouble would have disappeared naturally if he had taken the
advice of the first physician, to live without impatience and within his
limitations.

The human body is a very complex organism, and sometimes pain and
distress are better not relieved, since they may be the expression of
some deeper maladjustment which must first be straightened out. This is
also true of the mind--in which the unhappy proddings of conscience had
better not be cured by anodynes or by evasion unless we are prepared to
go deeply enough to make them disappear spontaneously. We must sometimes
insist upon patience, though it should exist as a matter of
course--patience with ourselves and with others. The physician who
demands and secures the greatest degree of patience from his clients is
the most successful practitioner, for no life can go on successfully
without patience. If patience can be spontaneous,--the natural result of
a broadening outlook,--then it will be permanent and serviceable; the
other kind, that exists by extreme effort, may do for a while, but it is
a poor makeshift.

I always feel like apologizing when I ask a man or a woman to be
tolerant or charitable or generous or, for that matter, to practice any
of the ordinary virtues. Sound living should spring unbidden from the
very joy of life; it should need no justification and certainly no
urging. But unfortunately, as the world now stands, there are men and
groups of men who do not see the light. There is a wide contagion of
selfishness and short-sightedness among the well-to-do, and a necessary
federation of protection and selfishness among the poor. The practical
needs of life, artificial as they are among the rich, and terribly
insistent as they are among the poor, blind us to larger considerations.

If all matters of welfare, public or private, could be treated
unselfishly, how quickly we should be rid of some of the great evils
that afflict the race. I am inclined to think that much of the goodness
of people does come in that way, unconsciously, naturally, as the light
flows from the sun. Yet I suppose that in our present order, and until,
through the years, the better time arrives, we must very often ask
ourselves and others to be good and to be charitable, just because it is
right, or worse still because it is good policy.

A man grows better, more human, more intelligent, as he practices the
virtues. He is safer, no doubt, and the world is better. It is even true
that, by the constant practice of virtues, he may come finally to
espouse goodness and become thoroughly good. That is the hopeful thing
about it and the reason why we may consistently ask or demand the
routine practice of the virtues. But let us hold up all the time in our
teaching and in our lives the other course, the development of the
inspiration that includes all virtues and that makes all our way easy
and plain in a world where confusion reigns, because men are going at
the problem of right living the wrong way around.

The practice of good living will never be easy in its details, but if it
is sure in its inspiration there will be no question of the final
triumph. We shall have to fight blindly sometimes and with all the
strength and persistence of animals at bay. We shall fail sometimes,
too, and that is not always the worst thing that can happen. It is the
glory of life that we shall slowly triumph over ourselves and the world.
It is the glory of life that out of sore trouble, in the midst of
poverty and human injustice, may rise, spontaneous and serene, the
spirit of self-sacrifice, the unconquerable spirit of service that does
not question, that expresses the divine tenderness in terms of human
love. Through the times of darkness and doubt which must inevitably
come, there will be for those who cherish such a vision, and who come
back to it again and again, no utter darkness, no trouble that wholly
crushes, no loss that wholly destroys.

If we could not understand it before, it will slowly dawn upon us that
the life of Christ exemplified all these things. Charity, kindliness,
service, patience,--all these things which have seemed so hard will
become in our lives, as in his, the substance and expression of our
faith. The great human virtues will become easy and natural, the
untroubled mind, or as much of it as is good to possess, will be ours,
not because we have escaped trouble, but because we have disarmed it,
have welcomed it even, so long as it has served to strengthen and
ennoble our lives.



XI

THE CURE BY FAITH


    The healing of his seamless dress
    Is by our beds of pain--
    We touch Him in life's throng and press,
    And we are whole again.
                WHITTIER.

I cannot finish my little book of ideals without writing some things
that are in my mind about cure by faith or by prayer. It is a subject
that I approach with hesitation because of the danger of
misunderstanding. No subject is more difficult and none is more
important for the invalid to understand. We hear a great deal about the
wonderful cures of Christian Science or of similar agencies, and we all
know of people who have been restored to usefulness by such means. Has
the healing of Christ again become possible on earth? No one would be
more eager to accept it and acknowledge it than the physician if it
were really so. But careful investigation always reveals the fact that
the wonderful cures are not of the body but of the mind. It is easy
enough to say that a cancer or tuberculosis has been cured by faith, and
apparently easy for many people to believe it, but alas, the proof is
wanting. The Christian Scientist, honest and sincere as he may be, is
not qualified to say what is true disease and what is not. What looks
like diseased tissue recovers, but medical men know that it could not
have been diseased in the most serious sense, and that the prayer for
recovery could have had nothing to do with the cure, save in a very
indirect way.

The man who discards medicine for philosophy or religion is courting
unnecessary suffering and even death. The worst part of it is that he
may induce some one else to make the same mistake with similar results.
In writing this opinion I am in no way denying the great significance
and value of faith nor of the prayerful and trustful mind. If it cannot
cure actual physical disease, faith can accomplish veritable miracles of
healing in the mind of the patient. No thoughtful or honest medical man
will deny it. Nor will most medical men deny that the course of almost
any physical illness may be modified by faith and prayer. I am almost
saying that there is no known medicine of such potency. Every bodily
function is the better for the conquering spirit that transcends the
earth and finds its necessary expression in prayer.

There really need be no issue or disagreement between medicine and faith
cure. At its best, one is not more wonderful than the other, and both
aim to accomplish the same end--the relief of human suffering. When the
two are merged, as some day they will be, we shall be surprised to
discover how alike they are. Christian Science is rightly scorned by
medical men because it is unscientific, because it makes absurd and
untenable claims outside its own field, and because it has not as yet
investigated that field in the scientific spirit. When proper study and
investigation have been made it will be found that faith cure, not in
its present state, but in some future development, will have an immense
field of usefulness. It will be worthy of as much respect in that field
as medicine proper in its own sphere. As a matter of fact both medicine
and faith cure are miraculous in a very real sense, as both depend for
efficiency now and always upon the same great laws which may be fairly
called divine. What is the discovery that the serum of a horse will
under certain circumstances cure diphtheria? Does it not mean that man
is tapping sources of power far beyond his understanding? Is man
responsible save as the agent? Did he produce the complex animal
chemistry that makes this cure possible? Did man make the horse, or the
laws that control the physiology and pathology of that animal? Here,
then, is faith cure in its largest and best sense. The biologist may not
be willing to admit it, but his faith in these great laws of God have
made possible the cure of a dread disease. Here, as in all matters of
pure religion, it is what men say and write, not the fact itself, that
makes all the misunderstanding; we make our judgments and conceive our
prejudices from mere surface considerations. Call life what you
will,--leave out the symbolic word "God" altogether,--the facts remain.
The true scientific spirit must reverence and adore the power that lies
behind creation. It is as inconsistent for the bacteriologist to be an
unbeliever as it is for the Christian Scientist to deny the value of
bacteriology. Medicine is infinitely farther advanced than Christian
Science, and yet Christian Science has grasped some truth that the
natural scientist has stupidly missed. When an obsession is thrown off
and courage substituted for fear, we witness as important a "cure" as
can be shown to the credit of surgery. If the Christian Scientists and
the other faith-curers were only less superficial and less narrow in
their explanation of the facts, if they would condescend to study the
diseases they treat, they would be entitled to, and would receive, more
respect and consideration.

The cure and prevention of disease through the agency of man are
evidently part of the divine plan. Our eagerness to advance along the
lines of investigation and practice is but that divine plan in action.
The truly scientific spirit will neglect no possible curative agent.
When scientific men ridicule prayer, they are thinking not of the real
thing which is above all possible criticism, but of the feeble and often
pathetic groping for the real thing. We ask in our prayers for
impossible blessings that would invert the laws of God and change the
face of nature--very well, we must be prepared for disappointment. The
attitude of prayer may, indeed, transform our own lives and make
possible for us experiences that would otherwise have been impossible.
But our pathetic demands--we shall never know how forlorn and weak they
are. Prayer is the opening of the heart to the being we call God--it is
most natural and reasonable. If we pray in our weakness and blindness
for what we may not have, there is, nevertheless, a wonderful
re-creative effect within us. The comfort and peace of such communion is
beyond all else healing and restoring in its influence upon the troubled
and anxious mind of man. The poet or the scientist who bows in adoration
before the glory of God revealed in nature, prays in effect to that God
and his soul is refreshed and renewed. The poor wretch who stands
blindfolded before the firing squad, waiting the word that ends the life
of a military spy, is near enough to God--and the whispered prayer upon
his lips is cure for the wounds that take his life.

The best kind of prayer seeks not and asks not for physical relief or
benefit, but opens the heart to its maker, and so receives the cure of
peace that is a greater miracle than any yet wrought by man. Under the
influence of that cure the sick are well and the dead are alive again.
With the courage and spirit of such a cure in our lives, we shall
inevitably do our utmost to relieve, by any good means, the physical
suffering of the world. We shall follow the laws of nature. We shall
study them with the utmost care. We shall take nothing for granted,
since by less careful steps we shall miss the divine law and so go
astray. The science of healing will become no chance and irrational
thing. We shall use all the natural means to relieve and prevent
suffering--there will be no scoring of one set of doctors by another
because all will have one purpose. But more to the point than that, men
will discover that health in its largest sense consists in living devout
and prayerful lives whereunto shall be revealed in good time all that
our finite minds can know and use. There will be no suffering of the
body in the old and pitiful sense, for we shall be so much alive that
disease and death can no longer claim us.


THE END





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